Angelenos Swap Huge Houses for Huge Apartments

For denizens of Los Angeles, living in houses as opposed to apartments has always been one of the few advantages of a city where you spend half your life behind the wheel of a car and the other half listening to people talk about weekend box office receipts or the latest and greatest new age routine. But real estate developers are now building more condos, according to today's Times, albeit condos that offer a "New York-style luxury high-rise lifestyle," which means "restaurants open 24/7, outdoor entertaining spaces and patrols by Israeli-trained security guards to foil the paparazzi." Sounds just like New York! Leading this trend? Famous bad mother Candy Spelling who, two years after Aaron's death, is selling her 56,500 square foot chateau-style house, with its famed gift-wrapping room, in favor of an apartment in a new Robert A. M. Stern designed building. But as you can imagine, the move won't be without its sacrifices.

At Spelling's new $47 million condo (which is actually two penthouse duplexes combined) there won't be room for all her 20 staff—she's keeping on "less than half," only three of whom will live in—nor, tragically, her collection of Madame Alexander dolls.

But hopefully the adjustment to her new lifestyle will be eased by the fact that she'll still have a private pool, a rose garden, and a 4,000-square-foot master bedroom. Oh, and the gift-wrapping room, which as her "hobby and therapy" is, she says, a life essential. We've always thought that ribbons, bows, and shiny paper should earn a spot on Maslow's hierarchy of needs.